Palestinian atheist blogger arrested

laine lowe wrote:

Let me guess, by not immediately denouncing this alleged persecution of a Palestinian atheist, we are proving that we are participating in the New Anti-Semitism :-p

The intent of this thread seems to be something like that, although when one considers that the PA serves much the same purpose for the Israelis as did the milice or the Vichy French government for the German occupiers, it isn't so easy to lump this ruling in with the usual commonplace fear of the turbanned Muslim horde.

Can't  imagine my relatives wanting me jailed for life.  

For a couple of years, maybe.

I could have caused a tugboat captain to blush by age 4. It was  early adjustment to the norms of a small Ontario village in wartime.

To be fair, he hasn't been charged with anything yet, though that's hardly a good thing.

To also be fair, George didn't say he'd been charged, he said he was imprisoned.  And it kind of sounds like maybe he's being imprisoned for blasphemy, as opposed to, say, parking fines.  Doesn't it?

Quote:

 I have never heard of any overt islamification of the Palestinian Authority legal code, such as it is.

Then I'll watch for him to be immediately released, with an apology, and a reminder to all that blasphemy is not a crime.

@Cueball

I think he's just been arrested and is being held while they decide on what to really charge him with (or do with him?). Perhaps the fact that it is now in the international limelight might save him of sorts. Wasn't there a guy who did this kind of thing before and the courts decided to rule him insane after there was pressure from abroad on executing him?

Antisemite! He isn't an athiest anyway, he is converted to Christianity, so not worthy of the support of athiests.

I've been reading alot of the posts and the muslim religion seems to be the target (from some).

Didn't George H.W. Bush say something to the effect that American atheists should be run out of the country?

It may not be life inprisonment but it still smacks of zeal and extremism.

You didn't mention Israeli pizza parlours.  Pizza eating is a sign of a civilized people.

[ed.]

By Jove, even in the land of Tandoori pizza, bloggers aren't safe!

UK Blogger Arrested for "Breach of Peace" after Smearing Political Opponents

For the record,I was not implying that all Arabs are Muslim.

Just happens that the atheist in question is a son of a Muslim scholar.

And atheism is not exclusively under attack in the Muslim world...It's under attack here in our 'superior,world's best democracy'.

Universality of Cheese.

How phlogistonish.

Perhaps Mr MacLachlan is an atheist who has published atheist thoughts online, I know he has not been charged with Blaspheming against the COE yet, but that possibility is lying in the wings somewhere. Perhaps someone should go out and find some really rabid protestants and ask them what they think should happen to people who campaign against the Church online?

kropotkin1951 wrote:

New York style only not other lesser types of pizza.

LOL don't say that in Chicago, they will kill you for that blasphemy.  

Cueball wrote:

We have absolutely no idea what kind of statements our Palestinian friend may have been making, now do we?

Actully there is some information on that:

Quote:

Over several years, Husayin is suspected of posting arguments in favour of atheism on English and Arabic blogs, where he described the God of Islam as having the attributes of a "primitive Bedouin." He called Islam a "blind faith that grows and takes over people's minds where there is irrationality and ignorance."

If that wasn't enough, he is also suspected of creating three Facebook groups in which he sarcastically declared himself God and ordered his followers, among other things, to smoke marijuana in verses that spoof the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an. At its peak, Husayin's Arabic-language blog had more than 70,000 visitors, overwhelmingly from Arab countries.

Cueball wrote:

 

Against that supposition we know a few important things. The PA legal system is not based on Islamic courts. We also know that no one has ever been charged with religious crime by the PA.

I agree with that; he hasn't been charged yet and I suspect that despite the "man in the street" comments dredged up by the press the PA doesn't have laws covering blasphemy. On a side note it's a good thing Hamas didn't get a hold of him; I think they do have religious courts.

I did not see this thread either until today so to assume that the reason why some who usually post about Palestinian issues did not do because of the geographical context is false. If a particular topic is not one I have already posted toward (and therefore it does not show up on a list when I first log-in) it does not get much notice from me unless it shows up on a highlighted list.

Is it wrong to imprison somebody for being an atheist? Goddamn it sure as hell is! Yet here is the deal: he was put in jail by the Palestinian authority, the one that Israel backs correct? Well Israel jails Palestinians for fixing their own plumbing without a certificate of approval first, for planting a single tomato plant in the backyard without a certificate of authority. People get their housebulldozed because someone supposedly in the neighborhood did something. Btw, in the recent past, every Friday night the Shinbeth went into the jails they have access to and did a 1 in 30 lottery and burnt the face of the unlucky guy on a stove element (brilliant  form of torture; using something relatively otherwise common and benign so that everytime they see one they remember the trauma - much better than getting electrodes to the genitals like in El Salvador). There are hundreds of Palestinian children under 12 in jail for months at a time without any particular charge. The brutalities enacted against Palestinians are as huge and as alarming as are the US govt donations to such efforts. How does one rate the jailing of an atheist in with this hierarchy and panopoly of horrors?

As an aside any number of beliefs (falsely or otherwise) associated with the West are seen with increasingly hostility. The West is made up of those who are either indifferent or ignorant of what goes on so why should they care what we think. We do not even lift a finger when a Westerner (eg Rachel Corrie) dies at the hands of the Israeli army. Get a grip and get a perspective! I know I am sick with rage against the West AND I am IN the West.

The PA polices the West Bank for the Israelis.  Maybe the Israelis wanted this blogger arrested.

laine lowe wrote:

So far, this case hasn't made it on Amnesty International's News Feed:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news-and-reports/page.do?id=1011302

But feel free to discuss Saudi Arabia's death sentence for sorcery or Egypt's failure to release a blogger who has completed his 4-year sentence for “inciting strife and defaming Muslims on the internet by describing the Prophet of Islam and his comrades as murderers, which disturbs national peace”, and “insulting the President of the Republic by writing on the internet”.

 

Did anyone start threads about them?

I don't know about anyone else but speaking for my self, nothing I wrote concerning the article linked by Doug had anything to do with Islam, Palestinians or Israel.  If anyone actually read what I wrote, I was trying to talk about something bigger to not have take place exactly what did.

I've seen a few people who should get life in prison for their haircuts. 

Condemn what? A person being held without charge? Ok, I condemn on principle a person being held without charge. Hassan Almrei was held for 8 years in Canadian prisons without charge.

I wasn't surprised at all by this article. What is surprising is the gullibility of people who read "atheist arrested" and then unquestioningly believe that the person was arrested because he was an atheist.

No according to the report, no charge has laid. That means we don't know why he was arrested. For all we know he was taken into detention because the Internet Cafe owner who spied on him, and they were afraid that word might go out and he might be the victim of vigilante violence.

What we do know is that PA laws are not based in Islam, and also that the PA has never charged anyone with a religious crime.

The fact that no charge has been laid is burried in the last line of the article. I hate to break the truth to you when you were so happy to find something to fit into your racist and stereotypical media driven drivel about ALL Muslim societies, and ALL Muslims, but that is the truth.

Need it be mentioned that thousands of Palestinians are held in Israeli jails without charge, and that this fact barely even makes the media, while this rather fluffy story about a single Palestinian being arrested allegedly for his views on Islam is big news.

Quote:

Farawana reports that in 2007 the Israelis issued over 3,000 decisions for Administrative Detention, the highest rate since the year 1990.

There are numerous cases reported of Palestinians being held without charge or trial for up to five years or more, including children.

Many ex-detainees have said that it is better to be sentenced, even to a lengthy time period, because one knows when they will be released. But with Administrative Detention, one never knows.

{SNIP]

Masoud Ayad from the Gaza Strip was finally released from Nafah Prison in mid-October after seven years under Administrative Detention. However, when he arrived at the Erez Crossing in the northern Gaza Strip's Beit Hanoun, the Israelis arrested him again, claiming that he "poses a threat to Israel's security." He was returned to prison without being able to see his family.

Anyway...

It isn't. Making sweeping generalization about an ethnic group of religious sect not founded in fact is called defamation:

Griffin21 wrote:

I don't know why anybody is at all surprised about this report. Apostacy from Islam is illegal in every Muslim country. The penalty varies from country to country. Death in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Iran, imprisonment in most other Muslim countries. Of course, local people may take the law into their own hands and kill the apostate. This actually happens quite often.

Does the fact this case is from the West Bank make it difficult to condemn it?

I have never heard of anyone being convicted of in most Muslim countries.

I would not be generalizing to say that is a dumb comment. I really hope the point doesn't have to be explained to you, since according to you, you have devoted your life to fighting prejudice: sweeping negative stereotyping of any distinct ethnic, cultural or religious group are inherently prejudiced, and often racist.

Often this kind of thing is based on blind ignorance. For example. I don't believe a court in Pakistan has every convicted anyone of Apostasy or sentenced them to death, unlike stated above, although there was some talk about changing the law, so that it would be so. My assumption is that the revision of the law never came into being and so the western press and the great unread who depend on it as a source of information never heard that it never became law, and are left with the impression that it is the law in Pakistan to execute people for Apostasy.

I could be wrong about that. In much the same way I imagine that if this fellow is let go, the story will disappear from the press, and people such as yourself will be left with the impression that people are arrested for heresy in the Palestine Authority, and this will lead to more sweeping generalization based on rumours and supposition, and prejudice about ALL majority Muslim states. The fact that Michelle Palmer got a three month suspended sentence and a small fine for fucking on the beach in Dubai, got hardly as much play as the story that she was doomed to be sentenced to six years hard time.

In general, as far as I know, actual official trials for Apostasy in Muslim countries is actually pretty rare. Definitely I know it has happened in US occupied Afghanistan, and also in the US protectorate of Saudi Arabia.

Unionist wrote:

VanGoghs Ear wrote:

I don't know about anyone else but speaking for my self, nothing I wrote concerning the article linked by Doug had anything to do with Islam, Palestinians or Israel.

That is very strange...

Because in post #4 above, here is what I read:

VanGoghs Ear wrote:

I guess no one can think of a way to blame this on Israel - hence the lack of posts

First mention of Israel in this thread.

Please clarify.

 

you're correct.  I did write that, so I suppose in my memory of this I wished that I had not done that. 

I love the phrase - being knocked off your high horse - even though very few people ride horses anymore I hope it sticks around.

Snert wrote:

It might be useful to differentiate between apostasy -- leaving Islam and either converting to another religion or adopting atheism -- and blasphemy.  In this case, it appears that Mr. Husayin did both, but to point out that people are rarely punished for simple apostasy doesn't mean much if we know that the same is not true of blasphemy.

And before anyone rushes to finger point elsewhere, yes, I know that Ireland has a law against blasphemy.  That law belongs in the middle ages.  Please note that I'm saying this despite the fact that Ireland is predominantly Christian and predominantly white!  If anyone thinks that Ireland should be exempt from being called backward for having a law against saying "God sucks" then please speak up now, otherwise I'll conclude that nobody's singling out only Muslim or "brown" countries for this.   Anyone?

Snert what law are you referring to?  Many people have pointed out that the PA has no such laws so where are you getting this from?

Intolerance apparently knows few borders. 

http://www.turkishclass.com/turkish/forum/forumTitle_48154

Britain had blasphemy laws on the books until 2008 although it had been since the 1920's since it was enforced. Here is some of the debate from a few short years ago.  Note as well that it was only the state religion that was protected.  Say anything you want about Papists just not Christ or the Anglican Church. 

Quote:

Q: What is the blasphemy law?

The legal notion goes back centuries - as faith was seen as being the heart of society, to challenge or offend it was thought to threaten the fabric of society.

The present law of blasphemy is based on decisions made by nineteenth century courts. In an 1838 case it was restricted to protect the "tenets and beliefs of the Church of England".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3753408.stm